And Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations that Jehovah had destroyed from before the children of Israel.
Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah, one of Judah's godliest kings. Within one reign he pulled the nation lower than the peoples God destroyed before Israel — how could a people who knew God sink below those who never did?
The shock is not that Judah sinned. It is that Judah went further than the nations around it. One writer points to the height Judah fell from:
It is a terrible portrait to paint of any man; but of a king of Judah, and a son of Hezekiah the Good, it seems almost incredible. It almost makes the heart turn sick to read the list of his abominations... It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge... And what must the surrounding nations have thought of these annals of Judah — "worse than the heathen"? Seven hundred years later the apostle, by the Spirit, declared, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." Of Manasseh and Judah it could truly be said even then.
So the damage spread outward. Judah's sin gave the watching nations a reason to insult God's name.
The verse does not stop at Manasseh's own sin. It says he led a whole city and nation astray. That is the heaviest charge in it, and it fits a pattern in the record of the kings:
Let us note here what these earlier chapters repeat so often: the sins of their kings made Israel sin. The sin of one person becomes far more serious when it turns into a stumbling-block for others. Its consequences count against those who carry away the ignorant and the poorly grounded into the path of their own disobedience.
The verse also decides Judah's future in the land. William Kelly follows the logic to its end:
The consequence was that Manasseh not only did evil himself, but led them to do more evil than the nations the LORD destroyed. How was it possible then for Judah to remain in the land of the LORD? It became a moral impossibility.
Judah's advantage was knowledge. The verse shows that knowledge without obedience does not protect a person. Kelly presses the same point on anyone who has heard much truth and obeys little:
No one brings shame on the truth so completely, or loses all conscience so fully, as those who are familiar with truth without obedience. The people who dishonour the Lord most are those who know the truth but are not subject to it... The greater the truth you know, if you treat it lightly, the worse your conduct will be.
God did not stay silent while the nation sank. One writer puts the horror of the account and God's patience side by side:
The account which opens chapter 33 of 2 Chronicles is terrifying. How could such a godly king as Hezekiah have a son like Manasseh?... In His patience God spoke to Manasseh and to His people, trying to bring them back to Himself, but they paid no attention.
Manasseh's name stands out twice over in the record of the kings, and one commentator names both reasons:
Manasseh stands out in a terrible way among the wicked kings of Judah. Even the fierceness of the LORD's wrath is traced to the sins and provocations of Manasseh. He is singled out for his sins, and as the object of God's mercy, as no other, before or since.
- Light: Manasseh began with every advantage, starting with a godly father in Hezekiah.
- Led: His sin was not private. He drew a city and a nation with him, and the consequences count against those who lead others into their own disobedience.
- Lower: Misused privilege is "the corruption of the best" — a people sinking below the nations who never had the light.
- Loss: Once Judah lived worse than the nations before it, staying in God's land became a moral impossibility.
- Mercy: The man singled out for the worst record is also singled out for mercy. The warning and the hope stand in the same chapter.
And Jehovah spoke to Manasseh and to his people; but they did not hearken.
Manasseh had dragged Judah lower than the nations God drove out of the land before them. Then God does something surprising: He speaks — and the whole nation ignores Him.
God sent messengers. One writer names them, the danger of the work, and the result:
God's prophets spoke out faithfully against these terrible deeds. Jewish tradition claims that Isaiah was put to death during Manasseh's reign. But though the LORD sent His messages, the people did not listen. 2 Kings 21:10-15 preserves the message that the LORD sent by His servants the prophets.
God did not send one messenger only. Another writer shows how heavy the warning was:
The LORD therefore spoke by the prophets — not by one prophet only. Manasseh had done greater wickedness than the Amorites, and had made Judah sin with his idols. So God declared with awful solemnity that He would bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who heard of it would tingle.
The warning was not a gentle hint. It was a charge, and it pointed to two disasters the nation had already watched:
It was a terrible charge, though a completely just one, and it should have brought the nation to repentance. The threats alone should have startled them out of their sins. They knew what had happened to Samaria — it had already fallen, and Jerusalem was to receive the same punishment. The house of Ahab had been destroyed, and their own kings would not escape a similar judgment. But the message was lost on them. They proved themselves a more stubborn people than the men of Nineveh, who one hundred and fifty years earlier had repented at the preaching of Jonah.
The verse names the king and the people together. One writer traces the people's deafness back to the king:
But Manasseh showed utter contempt for God in the way he treated God's temple. He led the people so far astray that they paid no attention to God's commands. They did worse evil than the ungodly nations whom God had destroyed so that Israel could take the land.
Knapp draws out how shocking it is that this happened inside the nation that carried God's name:
It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge… And what must the surrounding nations have thought of these annals of Judah — "worse than the heathen"?
Manasseh's reign ran on for fifty-five years. A long reign is easy to misread:
Manasseh may have reigned for 55 years, but that made no difference to the certainty of God's judgment. People too often mistake God's patience for leniency or indifference. Yet the longer He waits, the more awesome and terrible we can expect His judgment to be.
Verse 10 explains verse 11. When people ignore God's word, He changes method:
But the reaping came at last, though the harvest was late — delayed, perhaps, by God's long patience. "So the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks … and brought him to Babylon." They refused to hear the word, so they had to feel the rod.
The prison was not the last word. What the message failed to do, the suffering did:
We would tend to say: "he got what he deserved, it is over for him and so much the better!" But God has resources we can hardly imagine. In prison, in distress, Manasseh came to himself and called on the LORD. Scripture says he "humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers." God "was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem." What wonderful grace of God, far beyond anything we can think!
- Voice. God spoke first. He sent prophets, not one but many, with a warning strong enough to stop the nation.
- Deafness. The king's sin had become the people's habit, so God spoke to both. Judah proved harder to move than Nineveh, which repented under Jonah.
- Delay. A reign of fifty-five years made judgment no less certain. God's patience is not indifference, and long patience means a heavier reckoning.
- Rod. They refused the word, so they felt the rod. Capture and exile did what warnings had not.
- Mercy. Even then God was not finished. In prison Manasseh humbled himself, and God heard him and brought him home.
And Jehovah brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with fetters, and bound him with chains of brass, and carried him to Babylon.
God spoke to Manasseh and his people through His prophets, and they would not listen. So the Lord sent an Assyrian army, and their king went to Babylon in chains — the end of him, or the beginning of something else?
History gives a political background to this deportation. One writer traces it, then sets it beside the reason Scripture gives:
Up to a point in his reign, Manasseh had accepted the rule of the kings of Assyria. Babylon had thrown off the Assyrian yoke under its king Berodach-baladan, but Assyria had soon won it back and ruled it again. Manasseh was probably caught up in a conspiracy of all these eastern kingdoms against harsh Assyrian rule. He is led captive to Babylon, weighed down with chains of bronze. Judging by history, that was probably the cause of his cruel captivity. But the Word reveals the true cause. It was the LORD who brought upon Manasseh and his people "the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria."
The word "therefore" ties this verse to the sentence before it, where God spoke and no one listened. One writer puts the whole sequence in one line:
But the reaping came at last, though the harvest was late, perhaps, because God is so patient… They refused to hear the word, so they had to feel the rod. As was fitting for this monster of evil, Manasseh was brought in chains to Babylon.
Assyria captured him, yet the chains take him to Babylon, the city Assyria then ruled. One writer sees an old pattern in that:
It was the old law of retribution working itself out once again. The occasion of the sin became the instrument of its punishment. Hezekiah sinned in the "matter of the ambassadors" from Babylon, and it is to Babylon that his son Manasseh goes as a captive.
Translations differ over how the Assyrians took him. Older versions read "among the thorns." The ESV has "with hooks." One reference work keeps both older phrases:
God brought the king of Assyria against Manasseh, who took him "among the thorns," or "bound him with chains of brass," and carried him to Babylon.
Some have called the whole account unhistorical. One writer answers with hard evidence that also shows what the hooks were:
But an Assyrian monument has completely refuted these objections. The monument pictures the Assyrian king leading two captives with hooks and rings. The inscription reads: "I transported to Assyria men and women… innumerable." It also gives the name "Minasi sar matir Jaudi," which means "Manasseh, King of Judah."
Read on, and the chains change character. What looks like the end of Manasseh is how God reached him:
It was plainly the goodness of God that brought Manasseh down to this miserable condition of bondage. Romans 2:4 tells us that it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. How marvellous that the discipline of God brought Manasseh to repentance! No doubt God has used this means many times in seeking to bring people to repentance, yet most do not seem to respond.
Kings and Chronicles tell this king's story differently. One writer explains why:
The book of Kings stops once it has noted the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace acting through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace! How many will we find in the Lord's presence whose lives, like this one, seemed broken by judgment, and who beyond any doubt were brought by repentance to salvation.
- Refused — God spoke through His prophets and Manasseh would not listen. The word ignored brings the rod.
- Rod — behind the Assyrian commanders and the politics stands the cause the Word names: the Lord brought them.
- Reaped — the occasion of the sin became its punishment. Hezekiah sinned over the ambassadors from Babylon, and his son went to Babylon in chains.
- Rescued — those same chains were the goodness of God leading to repentance. He has used this means often, though most do not respond.
- Recorded — Kings closes with his guilt. Chronicles adds the rescue, showing that the most hardened heart can still become an object of grace.
And when he was in affliction, he besought Jehovah his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,
Manasseh led Judah deep into evil, and this verse finds him in chains, calling on the God he had dishonoured all his life. The turn is sharp, and it raises the question the chapter exists to answer: how far can grace reach?
The chains were not the end of the story. They were the means of a rescue. Manasseh had ignored God's Word, so God used a harder voice.
Manasseh had resisted the Word of God, which sought to correct his evil. So the Lord brought the army of the king of Assyria to take Manasseh captive and carry him off to Babylon (v. 11). It was clearly the goodness of God that brought Manasseh down into this miserable slavery. Romans 2:4 tells us that it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. How wonderful that God's discipline brought Manasseh to repentance! No doubt God has used this means many times in seeking to bring people to repentance, yet most do not seem to respond.
The word "greatly" is not decoration. It matches the size of what he had done. He admitted he deserved the punishment.
"He humbled himself greatly," and rightly so, for his guilt was indeed very great. "When he was in distress" — no doubt he admitted that his punishment was just. "I know, O LORD," he could say, "that Your judgments are right, and that You in faithfulness have afflicted me" (Ps. 119:75).
He cried out to the God of his fathers. Our instinct would write such a man off. God did not.
We would tend to say: "he got what he deserved, it is over for him and so much the better!" But God has resources we can hardly imagine. In prison, in distress, Manasseh came to himself and cried out to Jehovah. It is written that he "humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers" (2 Chr. 33:12). God "listened to his prayer and heard his plea, and brought him back to Jerusalem" (2 Chr. 33:13). What marvellous grace of God, which infinitely surpasses our thoughts!
The same reign is told twice in Scripture. The two accounts stop at different points.
God does not desire the death of a sinner, and His purpose was reached. Manasseh humbled himself and judged his whole conduct before God. God brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom… The book of Kings stops once it has recorded the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace working through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace! How many will we meet in the Lord's presence whose lives, like his, seemed broken by judgment, yet who beyond any doubt came to a repentance that leads to salvation.
Other reigns ran the other way, which makes this one stand out.
This is a very unusual history. Others, sadly, began well and ended badly. He began as badly as any had ever done, and worse than any before; but he had a blessed end.
Restoration did not erase every consequence. Writers distinguish between what God did for the man and what still fell on the nation.
He set out to undo his earlier evil works as far as he could… But he could never give back the innocent lives he had taken. He could never fully undo the evil of his past way of life. His sin, and Judah's with him, was so great that God never forgave it as a nation (2 Kings 23:26; 24:4; Jer. 15:4). As an individual, God forgave Manasseh through his confession and humbling before Him… He was the Old Testament chief of sinners — an example in that day of how much patience God shows to anyone who turns to Him in repentance and faith.
These accounts call us to the same humbling.
"Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God" (1 Peter 5:6)… God shows us through His Word that He will never be indifferent to our repentance. In grace He will appreciate, in a just measure, the reality of the judgment which we are inclined to apply to our own ways.
- Affliction — The chains were God's last word to a king who ignored His Word. His goodness stood behind the hardship.
- Humbled — The word "greatly" measures the guilt he confessed. Manasseh agreed that God had dealt with him justly.
- Heard — He turned to the God of his fathers, the very God he had insulted, and that God listened and restored him.
- Grace — Kings records the king's responsibility. Chronicles records God's grace, so no hardened heart is beyond reach.
- Fruit — He set out to undo his earlier evil works. He could not undo every consequence: God forgave the man, but judgment still fell on the nation.
and prayed to him. And he was intreated of him and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Jehovah, he was God.
Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with idols and blood, so God let Assyria drag him away in chains to Babylon. This verse is what happened next: a prayer from prison, a God who listened, and a king who at last knew who the LORD was.
The chains were not an accident of Assyrian politics. Commentators read the whole collapse as God's own work on a hardened man.
It was plainly the goodness of God that brought Manasseh down into this misery of bondage. Romans 2:4 tells us that it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. How marvelous that God's discipline brought Manasseh to repentance! No doubt God has used this means many times in seeking to bring people to repentance, yet most do not seem to respond.
From Manasseh's own side, the exchange looked like ruin. It turned out to be gain.
King Manasseh was bound in chains. This was sad to see — a crown of gold changed into fetters. But it worked for his good, for "when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly ... and God was moved by his entreaty" (2 Chr. 33:12-13). He owed more to his iron chain than to his golden crown. The crown made him proud; the chain made him humble.
Judah had refused God's word before the chains came. What changed in prison was Manasseh's own view of his guilt.
They refused to hear the word, so they had to feel the rod. "He humbled himself greatly," as well he might, for his guilt indeed was very great. "When he was in affliction" — no doubt, he owned the justice of his punishment. "I know, O Lord," he could say, "that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me" (Ps. 119:75).
Scripture gives no political reason for the release of a deported king. It credits God alone.
We are not told how the king of Assyria came to release Manasseh from prison and let him return to his place as king over Judah. But God Himself directed this restoration, and Manasseh then knew indeed that the Lord is God. This was a complete transformation, worked by the grace and power of God.
The parallel account in 2 Kings closes Manasseh's story without the prison prayer. The two books have different aims.
The book of Kings stops once it has noted the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace acting through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become objects of grace! How many will we meet in the Lord's presence whose lives, like his, seemed broken by judgment, yet who, beyond any doubt, came through repentance to salvation.
Most kings of Judah began well and finished badly. Manasseh ran the other way.
This is a history most peculiar. Others, sadly, had begun well and ended badly. He began as badly as any had ever done, and worse than any before; but he had a blessed end. He took away the strange gods and idols he had set up himself, and the altars he had made. He repaired the altar, offered peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the LORD.
God heard him, but not every consequence went away. Commentators draw a line between Manasseh himself and the nation he had corrupted.
But he could never restore the innocent lives he had taken, and he could never fully undo the evil of his earlier course. His sin, and Judah's with him, was so great that God never forgave the nation for it (2 Kings 23:26; 24:4; Jer. 15:4). But Manasseh himself was forgiven, through his confession and humbling of himself before God. It is good to see the great change in his later life. He did not forget how much he owed God for His matchless grace to him, as his "thank offerings" on the restored altar show.
God had a reason for keeping this prayer on record.
God valued that prayer for pardon in the prison in Babylon so highly that He had it written down. He did it to encourage other repentant sinners who would come back to the same God — the God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and of great kindness.
- Chains. God brought Assyria against Manasseh. The fetters that replaced his crown were discipline aimed at repentance, not just punishment.
- Cry. He humbled himself and agreed that the affliction was just. God was moved by that prayer.
- Crown restored. No politics explains his release. God brought him back to Jerusalem, and there Manasseh learned who the LORD is.
- Consequence. God forgave Manasseh himself. But he could not give back the lives he had taken, and the nation still bore judgment for his sins.
- Comfort. God had the prayer written down for sinners who would come back. The worst beginning in Judah's history ended with idols torn down, a repaired altar, and thank offerings.